Saturday, August 31, 2013

U.S. Soldiers Find Surprise on Returning to Afghan Valley: Peace -- New York Times

NANGALAM, Afghanistan — The Americans arrived under cover of night, the static electricity from their helicopter blades casting halos of blue in the pitch black.

It was their first return to the Pech Valley — a rugged swath of eastern Afghanistan so violent they nicknamed it the Valley of Death — since the American military abruptly ended an offensive against the Taliban here in 2011 after taking heavy casualties.

But the Americans, from the First Battalion of the 327th Infantry, had not come back to fight. Instead, their visit this summer was a chance to witness something unthinkable two years ago: the Afghan forces they had left in charge of the valley then, and who nobody believed could hold the ground even for weeks, have not just stood — they have had an effect.

The Navy’s Carrier-Launched Fighter is Getting a Spiffy Upgrade -- Robert Beckhusen, War Is Boring

But will America’s admirals buy it over the F-35?

The Navy hasn’t put the money down for it yet. But this week, Boeing wheeled out a major upgrade to the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, the Navy’s standard carrier-launched fighter plane. The new Advanced Super Hornet is stealthier, more powerful and boasts a much greater flying range than its predecessor.

It’s practically a brand-new jet. And an affordable one: $56 million for a factory-fresh copy or an estimated $14.6-$22 million to add the enhancements to an older Super Hornet. The heavily upgraded fighter is an option if admirals start getting cold feet over the troubled, $200-million-per-copy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The upgrades are designed to be subtle. Instead of keeping the weapons attached to the outside of the plane like in a conventional F/A-18, the Advanced Super Hornet holds its missiles and bombs — 2,500-pounds worth — inside an enclosed pod. This smoothes out the plane’s contours and makes it harder to detect with radar.

My Comment: What appeals to buyers are the costs and the fact that existing F-18 maintenance crews can carry over their training to this new Super Hornet .... saving even more money. If the F-35 continues to have problems .... and the U.S. defense budget continues to be cut .... the F-18 Super Hornet is/will be a viable alternative.

Russia’s Stealth Fighter Could Outfly, Outshoot American Jets -- David Axe, War Is Boring

T-50 is fast, long-ranged and has fearsome new weapons

Since its public debut four years ago, Russia’s first stealth fighter has quietly undergone diligent testing, slowly expanding its flight envelope and steadily working out technical kinks. But for all this hard work there have been precious few indications just how many copies of the Sukhoi T-50 Moscow plans to build … and how it means to use them.

If Sweetman is correct—and he usually is—the angular warplane with the 50-foot wingspan could be bought in small numbers and used as a sort of airborne sniper, elusively flying high and fast to take down enemy radars and support planes using powerful, long-range missiles.

Russia has announced plans to deploy the S-500 air defense missile weapon system by 2018. The S-500 system can hit targets in space and has a range of 500 kilometers, approximately 310 miles.

Interfax news agency reports the S-500 air defense missile weapon system will be ready for deployment by January 2018. The announcement was made by the commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force, Lt. Col. Viktor Bondarev on Friday. Bondarev said, “We can now say we can make this system. It will hit ballistic and aerodynamic targets. It will have an excellent range of some 500 km,” reports Interfax.

The S-500 air defense system is an upgrade from the S-400 system, which has a range of 400 km (249 miles), reports Agence France-Presse. According to an anonymous source speaking to Interfax, the S-500 will be able to target threats from space and will be able to protect the entire country as an anti-aircraft and anti-missile system. The AFP article cites an even earlier deployment timeline, with the “star wars” missile system ready for use by 2017.

Even a humanitarian operation demands a logical premise and a well-designed goal. The administration's proposal has neither.

Having backed himself into a corner by declaring a "red line" that has now been crossed, President Obama is by all appearances ramping up for military action in Syria. As best we can tell from the not inconsiderable leaks coming from Washington and elsewhere, the planned strikes would use aerial assets, last only a short period, and decidedly not be aimed at achieving our declared strategic goal.

The president has repeatedly articulated, going back to August 2011, that there is but one acceptable end state: "Assad must go." Dean of the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies and former ambassador Christopher Hill may well be right that this declaration "was not carefully arrived at" and has "boxed us in," it nonetheless remains the administration's policy.

My Comment: I have mentioned before that I do not understand what is the end-game for the U.S. in the event that they decide to conduct a military strike against Syria. And while I will give the White House the benefit of the doubt (for now) .... I will admit that I am deeply skeptical.

(Reuters) - Iran's monthly revenues from oil sales have dropped 58 percent since just before the United States imposed harsher sanctions on the country in 2011 because of Tehran's disputed nuclear program, a senior U.S. official said.

The OPEC member's monthly crude oil revenues averaged an estimated $3.4 billion in the first half of this year, down from $6.3 billion in the year ago period, and $8 billion from the first half of 2011, said the source, who did not want to be named due to the sensitive nature of policy on sanctions.

Washington warned in late 2011 Iran's oil consumer countries that their banks would face being cut off from the U.S. financial system unless they significantly reduced purchases of Iranian oil. The EU has also cracked down on Iranian crude exports.

UN chemical weapons inspectors, in Syria to probe an alleged poison gas attack that killed hundreds, have left Damascus for Beirut, having completed four days of site visits and evidence-gathering, witnesses and officials say.

The experts departed their hotel in the Syrian capital on Saturday morning, after having carried out a final day of inspections on Friday. The inspectors are seeking to determine what exactly happened in an alleged chemical weapons strike that killed hundreds in the Damascus suburbs on August 21.

The 13 inspectors, led by Ake Sellstrom, were seen loading their luggage into seven UN vehicles before setting off from their hotel, an AFP correspondent said.

While the United States is ready to strike a handful of targets on the ground in Syria, any international conflict there will take place on a much larger stage. The entire region is full of a witches' brew of military hardware from more than half a dozen nations with interests in the Syrian conflict.

The United States and France are prepared to strike the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from the Mediterranean Sea and a ring of air bases surrounding Syria. Meanwhile, three of America's most powerful military allies -- Britain, Turkey, and Israel -- are publicly staying on the sidelines, albeit with their militaries primed to defend against any Syrian counterattack. Then there are Assad's friends, Russia and Iran, both of which have military personnel on the ground in Syria.

DAYTON, Ohio — A recently declassified CIA report on the development of the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes said the high-flying jets were mistaken for UFOs more than half the time in the late 1950s and 1960s during Project Blue Book, a Wright-Patterson Air Force Base operation that investigated reports of UFOs.

Not everyone is convinced, however, of the explanation.

“There’s no question that a lot of the sightings that take place are in fact our own aircraft, secret military projects or whatever it happens to be,” said David P. MacDonald, a Cincinnati area resident and executive director emeritus of the Mutual UFO Network. “Whether or not 50 percent can be attributed to one or two aircraft, I don’t know if I could go along with that or not just because of the diversity of what people were seeing.”

Blue Book investigated 12,618 UFO reports, and 701 of those remain unidentified, according to the Air Force.

US Bolsters Asian Militaries in Face of China's Growth -- Voice of America

PENTAGON — U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is traveling in Southeast Asia in a bid to strengthen ties with the militaries of partners and allies in the face of China's growing influence in the region. Hagel has arrived in Brunei for a meeting of defense ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN.

It is a visit meant to reassure partner nations that the United States stands behind them in their efforts to build their militaries.

At a stop in Indonesia, the U.S. defense secretary announced a $500 million deal for the sale of Apache helicopters to the Indonesian military.

“We are signing today the letter of agreement to go forward and sell those helicopters," said Hagel.

I see the Obama "reset" is going so swimmingly that the president is now threatening to go to war against a dictator who gassed his own people.

Don't worry, this isn't anything like the dictator who gassed his own people that the discredited warmonger Bush spent 2002 and early 2003 staggering ever more punchily around the country inveighing against.

The 2003 dictator who gassed his own people was the leader of the Baath Party of Iraq. The 2013 dictator who gassed his own people is the leader of the Baath Party of Syria. Whole other ball of wax.

The administration's ingenious plan is to lose this war in far less time than we usually take. In the unimprovable formulation of an unnamed official speaking to the Los Angeles Times, the White House is carefully calibrating a military action "just muscular enough not to get mocked."

A box of Viagra, typically used to treat erectile dysfunction, is seen in a pharmacy in Toronto January 31, 2008. REUTERS/Mark Blinch

Why Did The Israeli Army Order 1,200 Viagra Pills? -- Haaretz

This is not the first time the ministry has sought price quotes for the sexual enhancement pill. It declined to comment citing 'privacy issues.'

Among the 105 tenders the Defense Ministry recently issued to procure items like tires, devices to warm the wounded, and sweet chili sauce, is a request for bids to supply the army with … Viagra.

Like other ministries, the Defense Ministry periodically publishes tenders in the daily press through the Government Advertising Bureau. One such tender recently published seeks 1,200 tablets of 100 mg. sildenafil citrate, the active ingredient in Viagra, to be used by Israel Defense Forces soldiers suffering from erectile dysfunction. The tender is signed by the Medical Corps, so the tablets are not meant for anyone other than IDF soldiers, such as Defense Ministry employees or people being served by the Rehabilitation Branch. Nor, apparently, is this the first time the ministry has sought price quotes for Viagra to be supplied to the military.

When I was working on a story about how much information the NSA data center in Utah might actually hold, a colleague sent me a link to this site, suggesting that the NSA was actually pretty transparent about its plans in Bluffdale. The “nsa.gov1.info” site had maps and photos of the data center, an overview of the plan for the site, and a description of the equipment that would be used there, as well as links to relevant articles. While the site looks very much like the NSA’s and much of the information — as gleaned from news articles — is accurate, it’s a parody site that takes on the bureaucrasona of the fictional “Domestic Surveillance Directorate.”

What makes the site incredibly fun to read is its taking on the voice of an NSA that embraces the openness about domestic intelligence gathering brought on by the Snowden leaks. The shadowy, secretive agency finally gets to put its feet up and brag about what it’s doing to “secure the future.” (That, by the way, is the NSA’s real tagline.) The “Surveillance Strategies” section raves about PRISM giving the NSA “ important insights into [targets'] thoughts and intentions.” In a candid explanation about why “Your Data” is being collected, the site explains that it’s “ thanks to top-secret Fourth Amendment exceptions allowed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”

Our Post colleagues have had a busy day. First, they released documents revealing the U.S. intelligence budget from National Security Agency (NSA) leaker Edward Snowden. Then they recounted exactly how the hunt for Osama bin Laden went down.

In that second report, Craig Whitlock and Barton Gellman shared a few tidbits about the role of the government’s hacking unit, Tailored Access Operations (TAO) in the hunt, writing that TAO “enabled the NSA to collect intelligence from mobile phones that were used by al-Qaeda operatives and other ‘persons of interest’ in the bin Laden hunt.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel visits the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila, Philippines, Aug. 30, 2013. The 152-acre cemetery is the resting place of 17,201 U.S. service members killed in World War II, most of whom died during operations in New Guinea and the Philippines. DOD photo by U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Aaron Hostutler

My Comment: This is idle speculation, but from vantage point it appears that British intelligence is running scared .... they must have discovered something that is really "freaking them out" .... and I am not talking about the identities of MI6 agents.

Some analysts, as well as the US government, say Edward Snowden's new leak, of the 'black budget' for US clandestine operations, reveals too much about US intelligence priorities. Others, who argue for more transparency, practically cheer.

The "black budget" for US clandestine operations – newly leaked by former US contractor Edward Snowden – portrays a sprawling global operation that is geared to detect and defeat terrorists, but is dominated by a data-collection program so massive that other priorities could easily be crowded out, analysts and critics said one day after the top-secret document was published.

Details from the 2013 National Intelligence Program budget, portions of which the Washington Post made available as of Thursday on its website, identify top US spending priorities as fighting terrorism, halting the spread of nuclear weapons, warning of critical events overseas, counterintelligence, and cyberespionage and cyberattack operations.

Some information in the 178-page summary document simply validates what was already thought to be true – such as the level of spending for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA). But the amount of detail, together with a big-picture overview of intelligence operations, provides a much fuller picture of a government activity that has expanded dramatically over the past decade.

My Comment: What's my view .... many of us always had the belief that the NSA was conducting operations that violated our privacy and rights .... what Edward Snowden has done with his leaks is that he has (so far) only confirmed in detail that we were right. I do not what future leaks will be revealed .... and I do hope that it is something that will not compromise our national security .... but we do have a right to know .... especially since many of us now no longer have confidence in the politicians who have clearly failed in providing the necessary oversight over the NSA and other intelligence agencies.

The Tomahawk cruise missiles being readied for possible use against Syrian government targets are part of a line going back to the Cold War — but these are definitely not your father's cruise missiles.

The most advanced Tomahawks are like driverless cars, except that they fly through the air at 550 mph and kill people. They have GPS, onboard digital maps, video cameras and two-way satellite links, and a navigation system that allows the missiles to loiter over an area and wait for their targets to pop up. That's in addition to the 1,000-pound bomb each Tomahawk typically carries.

The U.S. Navy can use those capabilities to send a message to Syria's leaders about their chemical weapons program, just as it sent messages in the past to leaders of Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen and Libya. Almost as important, the Tomahawks can send messages back — in the form of real-time battle damage assessments.

Colombia On Edge As Protests Sweep The Country -- Christian Science Monitor

Thousands of miners, truck drivers, health workers, and teachers have joined farmers in strikes that have blocked major arteries across Colombia.

Colombia's major cities erupted into violence yesterday as tens of thousands took to the streets in support of the nation's farmers, who have been on strike for eleven days.

Five people were reported killed, including a 15-year-old boy, in clashes with riot police that led President Juan Manuel Santos to announce the mobilization of 50,000 troops to restore calm to the country today.

Colombia's farmers – around 60 percent of the country's population, and the economy's backbone – say they can no longer make a living after years of neglect by the government in which crop prices have fallen, import prices have risen, and trade agreements have opened up the domestic market to large international companies they cannot compete with.

Turkey And Jordan Brace For The Worst As War Fever Grips The Region -- Haaretz

Like Israelis, people living in countries bordering Syria fear the violence may spill over and affect them.

Israelis aren’t the only ones in the region bracing themselves for a possible American attack on Syria; other nations that share a border with Syria are also tense, fearing a regional campaign that is liable to involve further use of chemical weapons.

Jordan seems to be the most concerned, as expressed by the stream of reports coming from Amman and the cities and regions adjacent to the Syrian border.

“Naturally it’s the talk of the day and the tension is great,” a Jordanian intellectual and resident of Amman told Haaretz yesterday evening. “I can attest that the pace of commerce and the markets in Amman are showing signs of a slowdown in the past week. There’s no doubt that people are concerned – perhaps in Amman less so, since it is the capital, after all, and there’s faith that the army, with the help of outside forces, will prevent any harm to the city. But as you get closer to the northern regions that are near the Syrian border, the situation is decidedly different.”

My Comment: Turkish military forces are now on high alert. Military forces in Saudi Arabia are now on high alert. Hezbollah in Lebanon are now repositioning their military forces. Not to be left out .... Israel, Jordan, and Iraq have also put their military forces on high alert. On top of everything else .... Russia is sending in ships, and even more ominous warnings are coming from Iran. Everyone is now on the edge .... war fever and war coverage is on the air 24/7 .... and everyone is waiting for what President Obama will do.

The U.S. military, struggling after defense cuts of tens of billions of dollars, will be unable to pay for attacks on Syria from current operating funds and must seek additional money from Congress, according to congressional aides.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, said on Friday he has not made a final decision on a military strike against Syria. He sought to play down both the scope and duration of the anticipated punitive missile and bombing campaign.

“As you’ve seen, today we’ve released our unclassified assessment detailing with high confidence that the Syrian regime carried out a chemical weapons attack that killed well over a thousand people, including hundreds of children,” Obama said.

My Comment: This is just one more example that the White House Syrian policy is disorganized, leaderless, and devoid of clear objectives or direction .... in short .... on Syria everything is being done on the fly. On a side note .... it does not take a genius to realize that the Pentagon does not want to go into Syria.

For Turkey, Planned U.S. Missile Strikes on Syria Not Good Enough -- Piotr Zalewski, Time

For some American allies, such as the UK, whose parliament seemed to reject any armed involvement in Syria on Thursday, punitive airstrikes against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad might be too much to stomach. For others, it may be too little. As the U.S. readies to proceed with limited missile strikes against Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed over a thousand people last week, Turkey, a key regional ally and Syria’s neighbor, seems to want more than Washington is willing to give.

The Obama administration signaled Friday that any action against Syria would be brief and measured. Turkey, however, having declared it would join any international coalition against Assad, with or without U.N. backing, has made it equally clear it wants a more robust intervention. On Wednesday, according to Turkish media, Ahmet Davutoglu, the country’s Foreign Minister, counseled his US counterpart John Kerry that any action should be forceful enough to bring Assad’s regime to the negotiating table.

Defence secretary Philip Hammond has expressed apprehension about the future of Britain's defence ties with the US. Hammond's comments came as John Kerry, the US secretary of state, praised France as the oldest ally of the US and made no mention of Britain.

In an interview with Channel 4 News, the defence secretary showed how the Anglo-American special relationship had been shaken by the parliamentary defeat when he said that France's renewed alliance with the US placed Britain in an "uncomfortable place".

NATO is not planning a military intervention in Syria under the auspices of the Alliance, stated Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

"The international community must give an answer to events in Syria. But I see a no NATO role in an international reaction against the regime in Syria," stated Rasmussen, as quoted by Danish newspaper Politiken.

Nevertheless, the NATO Secretary General said he has no doubts that the regime is the party that perpetrated last week's attack with chemical weapons.
- See more at: http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=153285#sthash.1ljykKHA.dpuf

US report released Friday asserts an Aug. 21 attack in Syria involved chemical weapons – and concludes confidence is 'high' that the Assad regime, not Syrian rebels, is responsible. It also offers answers on what, when, where, and why.

That judgment is based on reports from human informants, intercepted communications, and overhead spy photos, says the terse four-page document. A total of 1,429 people, including 426 children, were killed in an attack that most likely involved nerve gas, says US intelligence.

“Our high confidence assessment [of what happened] is the strongest position that the US Intelligence Community can take short of confirmation,” says the document.

US officials have been promising all week that the administration would release a scrubbed intelligence analysis of the Syrian incident. The basic conclusions of the report, released Friday, closely follow statements the White House has been making for days.

In other words, it concludes that the tragic event was a chemical weapons strike, that the regime of Bashar al-Assad was responsible, and that there is no way Syrian rebels could have carried it out, as Mr. Assad claims.

Terrifying Video Reveals Shocking Incendiary Bomb Attack On School Playground That Killed At Least Ten Syrian Children And Left Scores More With Horrific Burns -- Daily Mail

* BBC Panorama footage shows children and adults caked in 'napalm-like' substance following attack in northern Syria
* Many left with burns to more than 50 percent of their bodies
* Victims seen shaking uncontrollably while treated in basic hospital
* British medic in Syria said: 'We feel like we just don't matter'
* Disturbing film revealed just hours after MPs voted against military action in Syria, following chemical attack near Damascus

Shocking footage has emerged of young children and adults suffering horrific burns and caked in a 'napalm-like' substance after a bomb was dropped on a school playground in northern Syria.

Witnesses told a team from the BBC’s Panorama programme that a fighter jet had repeatedly flown overhead, as if searching for a target, before dropping the bomb.

The disturbing film came to light just hours after MPs voted against military action in Syria, following a chemical attack near Damascus on August 21.

Friday, August 30, 2013

What Happens After A Strike On Syria? It Depends On How Far The U.S. Goes -- Richard Engel, NBC

America’s expected “limited” strikes in Syria could push the country into an even more dangerous and unpredictable downward spiral or even an international crisis, but doing nothing may be unconscionable and has consequences of its own.

Iran says a U.S. strike in Syria will result in disaster in the region.

Syria's foreign minister promised the Syrian military would defend against an attack in ways that will “surprise” the world.

Israel said it is putting its missile defenses, including the Iron Dome and Arrow systems, on their highest state of alert.

US Set For Syria Strikes After Kerry Says Evidence Of Chemical Attack Is 'Clear'

• Secretary of state brands Assad 'a thug and a murderer'
• Kerry: attack killed 1,429 Syrians including 426 children
• 'History will judge us extraordinarily harshly if we turn blind eye'

John Kerry advanced what he called a "clear and compelling" case that Syria was responsible for a chemical attack that killed nearly 1,500 people, in a statement on Friday that made clear the US was on the verge of military strikes against the Assad regime.

Speaking in a blunt tones, the US secretary of state branded the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad a "thug and a murderer", and said the United States could not stand by and let a dictator get away with such serious crimes.

DOHA — Saudi Arabia, a supporter of rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, has raised its level of military alertness in anticipation of a possible Western strike in Syria, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The United States has been calling for punitive action against Assad's government for a suspected poison gas attack on a Damascus suburb on Aug. 21 that killed hundreds of people.

Saudi Arabia's defense readiness has been raised to "two" from "five," a Saudi military source who declined to be named told Reuters. "One" is the highest level of alert.

Former president George W. Bush weighed in tentatively on the situation in Syria on Friday, saying President Obama "has to make a tough call" on whether to order a military strike against Bashar Assad's regime.

Bush, who made his comments during an appearance on the Fox News Channel where he also discussed his recovery from a recent heart surgery as well as his charitable works, had his own frustrations with Assad during the eight years of his presidency.

Bush and his aides expressed frustration that Assad tacitly supported the flow of al-Qaeda fighters and arms into Iraq during the height of the anti-American insurgency there.

"I was not a fan of Mr. Assad," Bush said. "He's an ally of Iran, and he's made mischief."

President Obama today said he has "not made any decisions" on whether to launch a military strike on Syria, but sought to assure the American public and the international community that if he does, it will be a "limited, narrow act."

"We're not considering any open-ended commitment," Obama said, adding, "In no event are we considering any kind of military action that would involve boots on the ground, that would involve a long-term campaign."

The president said that punishing Syria would send a message that the "international community cares about maintaining this chemical weapons ban."

Alongside Vice President Joe Biden and leaders from Baltic nations, the president called the crisis in Syria "a challenge to the world."

About Me

I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
These blogs are a summation of all the information that I read and catalog pertaining to the subjects that interest me.